Trump sent them to hell. Now he

The only information that Ysqueibel Yonaiquer Peñaloza Chirinos received about him in the last three months came from former Republican congressman Matt Gaetz.

Gaetz probably didn’t want to help. But last month, as part of a propaganda video For the extreme right of One America News Network, he toured the infamous saving prison to which President Donald Trump has sent hundreds of US immigrants to indefinite detention, without charge, trial or sentence: the center of confinement of terrorism or CECOT. When Gaetz arrived, Trump’s men had presented the prison had already been there for two months.

It happens quickly: the OANN camera moves through a cell cluster that Gaetz says that they are being used to support the people Trump sent to El Salvador. Many sing “freedom!” Some press their hands together in prayer, pleading.

Peñaloza’s face flashes on the screen, framed by two metal bars. He looks sad, almost crying, and says nothing. But it does what most others are doing, opening and closing the fingers on a closed thumb, doing what His lawyers say It is a symbol of the internationally recognized hand for anguish, a Request to “send help” to flash Popularized by groups for the defense of domestic violence during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Peñaloza’s mother, Ydallys Chirinos-Polanco, saw him in the video. She already knew that he was in prison, the tattoo of the Peñaloza olive branch was visible in the initial images of March 15 of the Cecot detainees of the United States, but she had not seen it since then.

Peñaloza’s only meeting with the law in the United States had been a traffic ticket, he said.

“I felt a lot of pain,” Chirinos recalled for News themezone in a video call on Wednesday, speaking in Spanish and tears. “But at the same time, much happiness to see that he is alive and that he had the strength to stand up.”

A month later, she has not seen more of her son.

In his absence, the United States government has worked to eliminate Peñaloza, who is Venezuelan, of the domestic immigration court completely. Six days after the Gaetz prison tour, an immigration judge granted the request of the National Security Department to dismiss the case of Peñaloza. With regard to the United States Immigration Court system, it does not exist.

At least 24 people sent to CECOT have dismissed their immigration cases in their absence, he told News themezone, executive director of Together & Free, who works to identify and track Cecot’s detainees, News themezone. The real number may be greater, and it is not clear how many cases do DHS pending dismissal have that they have not received Immigration judges failures, which are technically employees of the Department of Justice instead of members of an independent judicial system.

Some immigration judges are going back. Last week, one of those judge denied a motion of the DHS to dismiss the case of immigration of a CECOT detainee, saying that the Trump administration had “fought essentially from its opposite party.” But that is a rare exception to the trend.

The dismissal of immigration cases for CECOT detainees is another example of the Trump administration that works to erase any trace of them in the United States, although hundreds had legal cases in progress here when they disappeared.

Without that legal finger in the United States immigration system, CECOT detainees run the risk of falling not only outside the reach of US law but also outside any legal recognition.

“I couldn’t get any information about Ysqueibel … [and] By pure courage on his part, he pressed his face against the bars of a dangerous prison so that his loved ones know he is still alive. “

– Margaret Cargioli, Ysqueibel Peñaloza’s lawyer in the United States

There was no hearing in the case of Peñaloza to discuss the dismissal (a date of the Court of May 30 was canceled in advance, and no discussion about where Peñaloza is or how he arrived there. On the other hand, in a presentation of two paragraphs in April, the immigration lawyers and application of the customs only said that the 25 -year -old “was identified as an alien enemy and retired from the United States.”

It was a perverse legal argument. Because Trump had eliminated Peñaloza without a legal process, he was no longer present in the United States and, therefore, had no right to any legal process, the government said. On May 15, an immigration judge granted the motion of the DHS, stating that “the court does not have the authority to demand the defendant of return of the DHS to the United States.”

Peñaloza’s legal team plans to appeal, and the lawyers of CECOT detainees are involved in several demands in their name. While they dismiss the cases, some immigration judges have said that the right place for legal challenges are habeas corpus demands, and despite the open challenge of the Trump administration, federal judges have advanced such demands nationwide, especially Earl this month.

“Imagine having to explain to someone’s mother, as an immigration lawyer of the United States, that his child has an immigration hearing, and government lawyers fighting against their case Lawyers and lawyer’s lawyer lawyers and lawyer for lawyers and lawyer lawyer for murders and lawyer. States, they told News themezone.

Like other lawyers from CECOT detainees, Cargioli argues that because the Trump administration made an agreement with El Salvador to imprison the migrants expelled from Trump, his client is still under the “constructive custody” of the United States, and his day is still due to his day.

“It is surprising that you cannot obtain information about Ysqueibel to provide your family during the Immigration Court hearings, and that by pure courage on its part, he pressed his face against the bars of a dangerous prison so that his loved ones know that he is still alive,” he said, referring to Gaetz’s video.

One America News Network

The Trump administration defended the management of these cases. “The appropriate process due to an illegal alien terrorist with final deportation orders is the elimination, simple and simple,” said the spokeswoman for the National Security Department, Tricia McLaughlin, News themezone in a statement, ignoring a long list of specific questions. McLaughlin said the DHS has a “strict evaluation of application of the law in its place that meets due process under the constitution of the United States.”

But the DHS has not published evidence that supports its claims with respect to CECOT detainees, and about half of the people that the Trump administration has sent to CECOT did not have final deportation orders. Those who did it mostly had orders to be deported to Venezuela, not El Salvador.

White House spokesman, Abigail Jackson, said separately: “Any illegal foreigner who is deported from the United States receives due process before any elimination.”

But that is simply not true. Human Rights Groups and Lawyers They have characterized the interpretations of the Trump administration of hundreds of people to Cecot as “Forced disappearances“, In which someone is arrested and deprived of their rights without due process, while their captors even refuse to recognize their arrest.

Peñaloza is just one of At least 278 peoplemostly Venezuelans and some Salvadorans, sent by the Trump administration to the saving prison earlier this year as part of an agreement in which it is the Trump administration Paying the Salvadoran government millions of dollars to detain non -American citizens.

Around half of the immigrants in that group were sent to CECOT after they received “removal” orders in standard deportation procedures, unprecedented punishment given the immigration procedures are civil, non -criminal nature.

The other people, including Peñaloza, were accused by the United States government of being “alien enemies.” They were declared members of the Trena de Aragua gang, often simply by common tattoos. The Trump administration considers that Train de Aragua is not only a gang but also a terrorist group, as well as essentially an invading army that is supposedly working in hand with the Venezuelan government.

Courtey of Yskeibel Yonaiquer Peñaloza Chirinos family

In March, Trump invoked the Alien enemies law, a war authority used for the last time in World War II, to claim that the gang was really “supporting the [Venezuelan President Nicolás] The objective of the Maduro regime to destabilize democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States. “

Veterans intelligence analysts who disputed that statement were fired. Suddenly, he only took the saying of a low -level bureaucrat to banish someone in the country and indefinite detention in one of the most notorious prisons in the world, without any review of the judges.

The same day that Trump signed his statement, the administration began to fly hundreds of Venezuelans in custody of the United States to Cecot. A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop the removals and change the flights, but government officials ignored the directive.

The judge opened criminal contempt against administration in April, but the administration did not make any effort to return to the expelled men. The officials even challenged an order from the Supreme Court that told them to return to Kilmar Abrego García, a Salvadoran immigrant that several government officials recognized that he was unfairly expelled to El Salvador despite the fact that the previous order of a judge protected him from being returned there.

The Trump administration finally returned Abrego García to the United States on June 6, almost two months after the Supreme Court talked about its case; Now faces criminal charges for alleged conspiracy to transport aliens and illegal transport of undocumented foreigners. Abrego García was prosecuted on Friday and declared himself innocent.

The United States government has never recognized the complete list of people sent to CECOT, but News, Bloomberg and other media have used filtered lists and judicial records to establish that the vast majority of people had no criminal record, but in the United States or in other parts of the world.

The administration’s own records showed the same, propublic journalists, Texas Tribune and Venezuelan points of sale fake news and Rebe Alianza LDE investigated recently reported. And of 90 cases in which the method of the detainee was known to come to the United States, 50 cases described people who had legally entered the United States, “with the advanced permission of the United States government, at an official border crossing point,” the Cato Institute, a group of libertarian experts, found.

Peñaloza was one of them. He arrived in the United States through a previously scheduled appointment on CBP One, the application of the cell phone used by the Biden administration to process asylum seekers.

However, due to the actions of the Trump administration, hundreds of active cases in the immigration courts of the United States suddenly stop, with worrying implications for the futures of CECOT detainees.

Like other people Trump has banished Cecot, Peñaloza had the legal right to present a case in the United States why he should stay here, a right that the government usurped.

Courtey of Yskeibel Yonaiquer Peñaloza Chirinos family

If a certain immigration case is dismissed, “it has no legal status and has no way to obtain it, because it is not in the process,” said Brané, the executive director of Together & Free, who previously worked as an official of the Immigration -centered Biden administration.

If Cecot detainees who have ruled out their immigration cases in some way return to the United States someday, it is not clear what their next steps would be, said Brané. “Like all this [Alien Enemies Act] Things, has never happened before and are not following normal procedures, ”he said, referring to the Trump administration.

The Detainees “Were denied due process, they are dissappeared, and they are going in this legal limbo where they reminate in a prison with non -legal protection, excluded from the protection of the law, and they Attorney for Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, He told ABC News.

Linette Tobin, courtesy of the lawyer

Jerce Reyes Barriosone of the people who faced Having his case of launched immigration, was in the final stages of his asylum procedures when the government disappeared in March. A professional soccer player and youth soccer coach, Reyes Barrios fled from Venezuela last year after being arrested and tortured with electric shocks and suffocation by Protestant authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro, his lawyer Linette Tobin wrote In a judicial statement.

While in Mexico, Reyes Barrios made an appointment at CBP One and presented immigration officials at the United States border. Immigration officials arrested him in an installation in San Diego and accused him of being a member of Aragua train, citing one of his tattoos and a hand symbol he made in a publication on social networks.

The tattoo, which shows a crown on a football ball and the words “God”, or “God”, resembles the logo of the favorite soccer team of Reyes Barrios, Real Madrid, Tobin wrote in the statement. And the gesture of the hand, he wrote, “it is common that it means that I love you in sign language and is commonly used as a rock & roll symbol.”

After presenting Venezuelan documents that show that he had no criminal record, as well as jobs, a statement by the tattoo artist and documents that explained the meaning of the tattoo and the gesture of the hand, Reyes Barrios was eliminated from maximum security. His last hearing on his asylum case in the Immigration Court was scheduled for April 17.

“We were fully prepared. Everything had appeared to the Court. Everything was ready,” Tobin said in an interview.

But for March, Reyes Barrios felt nervous, his lawyer said: “Just in the seven days before his removal, he was expressing a real concern. I think he had a premonition.”

Linette Tobin, courtesy of the lawyer

In the following days, he was abruptly transferred from a detention center in California to one in Texas. And then, it darkened.

Shortly after deportation flights of March 15 to El Salvador, the family of Reyes Barrios saw a photo of some of the men in Cecot with their hands together behind their newly shaved heads. His faces were mostly obscured by his arms, but his family thought they recognized Reyes Barrios.

Tobin called the ICE office in Texas, the last known location by Reyes Barrios. She received confirmation that she had been “eliminated”, but the person on the phone refused to say where, he said.

The fears of the family were confirmed on March 20, when the name of Reyes Barrios appeared on the News list by appointing some people detained in Cecot. His family saw him again in the footage published by Gaetz in May.

Less than two weeks after Reyes Barrios disappeared, DHS presented a motion to dismiss his immigration case.

The four -line motion did not provide any clarity about its location, condition or the reason why the Government considered it a so -called “alien enemy.” Instead, a DHS lawyer simply argued: “The respondent is no longer in the United States. As such, there is authority to say goodbye for this reason.”

Tobin urged the judge to deny the government’s request, arguing that “the dismissal is inappropriate” and “would affirm and exacerba the rude and flagrant violations of DHS of DHS [Reyes Barrios’] Due to due process. “She pointed out that in progress Federal Litigation About the legality of CECOT transfers could result in it client returning home – Just to discover that your asylum case had been thrown.

In fact, earlier this month, a federal judge governed that the Government must “facilitate” the ability of those transferred to CECOT to pursue habeas claims, or challenge the legality of their detention. The family of Reyes Barrios sent a text message to Tobin Emojis of party hats to celebrate the ruling. “Having the injustice recognized by a court made them very happy,” Tobin said.

There have been four hearings in the case of Asylum of Reyes Barrios since he was eliminated from the United States, the judge asked the Government to provide information in support of its dismissal motion, including confirmation that Reyes Barrios was eliminated from the United States and evidence that he is a member of the train of Aragua. But at each audience, the government has just restored that it is moving for dismissal, Tobin said.

“They never say anything else. They don’t quote regulations. They don’t cite the law’s laws. They simply say: ‘They dismiss the case’,” Tobin said.

At a hearing last month, Tobin asked the judge to closely close the case, which would effectively stop the procedures. When the DHS lawyer opposed the request, the judge requested his reasoning.

“His answer, after a very long pause, was: ‘Well, because we are moving for dismissal,” Tobin said.

Then, on Tuesday, a crucial development arrived. In a ruling, the judge in the case of Reyes Barrios granted Tobin’s motion to close it administratively. As a result, your asylum case is still pending.

“Any opposition to administrative closure implies the preference of the department to dismiss the procedures […] That the Court considers inappropriate under the doctrine of immune hands since the department is essentially released from its opposite part, “the judge wrote in his order, pointing out several so -called” Avetisyan factors “, a reference to the precedent of the existing immigration court on when appropriate to the cases of administratively close immigration, even if one side it disagrees.

“The ongoing litigation questions the legality of the department’s removals under the [Alien Enemies Act]”The judge added.” The court anticipates the defendant’s ability to proceed with his [asylum] Application, which presented on December 3, 2024, although it is difficult to determine the final result of its procedures at this stage since the defendant never had his ‘day in the court’.

Tobin celebrated the decision in a statement to News themezone.

“The DHS is feeding the lies to the public every day, saying that they are deporting violent criminals, monsters, the worst of the worst,” he said. “Seeing the judges calling the government for their illegal actions, ‘immune hands’, and the obfuscations give me some degree of hope that justice will finally prevail and the people who disappeared illegally/deported without due process will finally arrive their day in court.”

“The department is essentially released from its opposite party […] The court anticipates the defendant’s ability to proceed with his [asylum] application.”

– The decision of an immigration judge to closely close the detainee of Cecot Jerce Reyes Barrios de Asilo of the United States, instead of dismissing it directly as the Trump administration had sought.

In several other cases, immigration judges have been willing to grant the request for dismissal of the DHS quickly, sometimes without even holding a hearing. After CECOT deportation flights, immigration lawyers throughout the country rushed to keep the cases alive.

In addition to Peñaloza, Immigrant Defenders Law Center has seven other clients in CECOT. Three have dismissed their immigration cases, and one received elimination orders in absence, said the communications director, Renee García, in an email.

Perhaps the most recognizable case, due to the coverage of national news, is that of Andry Hernández Romero, a gay makeup artist who was looking for asylum in the United States and was attacked for an indefinite Cecot detention due to benign tattoos, including two crowns with “mom” and “dad” printed under them.

An immigration judge dismissed Hernández’s case at the end of last month, as NBC News reported. A judge also dismissed the case of Arturo Suárez Trejo, a Venezuelan singer and friend of Peñaloza, who had appeared in Suárez’s musical videos in the past, Garcia said.

Last month, Judge Jason L. Stern, an immigration judge based in Houston, dismissed the case of Frizgeralth of Jesús Cornejo Pulgar despite the fact that the government presented a motion to continue in the case, Mother Jones reported.

Another Cecot detainee whose case was dismissed, Henrry Jose Albornoz Quintero, lost the birth of his son while languishing in the infamous prison of El Salvador.

Quintero and his wife, Naupari Rosila, arrived in the United States at the end of 2023, initially sleeping in a car until they kept enough for a deposit in a Dallas apartment. In January, when his wife had seven months pregnant, Quintero was arrested during a check-in check-in of ice. Rosila found a lawyer and raised money to be released on bail. Days before a hearing in the immigration court, he told him that he was going to be deported to Venezuela’s house. He was sent to Cecot instead.

In April, an ICE lawyer moved to dismiss the case against Quintero, writing in a two -paragraph presentation that “the defendant was identified as an alien and retired enemy from the United States.” Quintero’s lawyer, John Dutton, told News themezone that the dismissal motion was the first time that the Trump administration recognized the use of Alien enemies law against his client.

The motion of dismissal was “morally disgusting,” Dutton wrote in a judicial presentation, describing Quintero as sent to “an extrajudicial dungeon in one half of the night, an undercover and covert operation between our government and a foreign dictatorship, financed, directed and fully controlled by the United States.”

“You cannot allow the government to erase the people of its jurisdiction simply by sending them abroad,” Dutton wrote. “If the DHS motion was granted, it would establish a chilling precedent: so that the DHS can kidnap the non -citizens mid -processes, hire their indefinite detention to foreign governments and then declare the case due to their own illegal behavior.

On May 1, a judge granted the motion of the Government. Quintero’s case was dismissed.

“Regardless of the defendant’s opposition merits to his physical elimination of the United States, this court has no jurisdiction to consider constitutional problems,” the immigration judge wrote. “The requirements for the dismissal of the notice have been met in this case.”

***

On the phone, Peñaloza’s mother told News themezone about her son, who is a worker, mainly and respectful. He is a trained refrigerator technician who has worked on construction in the past. He is a good cook who loves to do Chinchurria – To ED things, popular fried intestine dish in Venezuela, but you can also wear humble meals such as vegetarian arepas or rice with tomato sauce.

He is an older brother who, in past years, would remind his younger sisters to listen to his parents. Part of his income of his time in the United States went to pay the physiotherapy education of his younger sister.

Valentina Polanco-Chirinos, the 17-year-old sister of Peñaloza, briefly intervened in the call. His brother was sentimental, he said, and would cry when his mother scolded him. But especially given his mother’s trips throughout Venezuela for work, she was grateful for him. He was almost a father figure for her, Valentina said.

Peñaloza’s mother, who had just returned from Caracas, where a group of family members of Cecot’s detainees asked the United Nations, said that his son’s disappearance to El Salvador in March surprised him. He, like many others who ended up in Cecot, believed while he was in the arrest of the immigration of the United States that headed home to Venezuela. She said that she had given all her clothes to relatives when she had gone to the United States, and that she had set out to buy a new pair of shoes.

When it was learned that a handful of deportation flights had landed in El Salvador, thought they had been diverted due to the weather. The reality was established when he saw that one of the prisoners had the tattoo of his son.

The United States seems to be going back, he said: Cecot’s detainees were kidnapped and were not given the opportunity to defend themselves.

And your child’s immigration case in the United States? If he is finally released from Cecot, did he think he would like to return and fight for his right to stay in the country?

She didn’t believe it.

“I don’t think he feels safe there.”